I look at worship as a way of life; it is the essence of what God created us for. I have heard others say it is simply giving God what is fitting and it involves everything we do. I agree, if indeed worship is a way of life, then surely worship is about everything we do. I always try my best to drum it into people’s heads, minds and spirits that worship is a vital weapon of warfare and should therefore not be taken lightly and for granted for any reason, object or circumstance. It comes from the inside of us and goes up to God each ’n every day of our lives. I once read an article in one of the Christian magazines (I can’t remember which one) entitled “He watches over the watch of those who watch the Lord”. There was a quote that I loved so much on that article which I wrote down and it read,”Having our eyes fixed on Him is our most responsible position, as God watches over the things that matter to us”. Wow! It’s just spot on, I couldn’t have said it better. As we focus on Him, we are ushered into and attract His power and presence into our lives, issues, situations and concerns.

Worship takes you to a heavenly realm where you soak in His presence and when you come out of that realm, your eyes see things differently. In today’s church environment, we have left the responsibility to worship God in the hands of the worship leader and we have kind of forgotten that worshipping God is not a ‘Sunday ritual or thing’, it’s our way of life as Christians. As a Praise and worship leader myself in our congregation, I love worship teams and have nothing against them. Darin Browne says, “Becoming a praise and worship leader is one of the greatest privileges and comes with the most challenges. Across the world, praise and worship leaders hold great responsibility for the way church services flow, and can be responsible for tremendous times of praise and worship within the congregation, setting the scene for the Word of God to really minister to and challenge hearts. Sure, it is a challenge and a lot of hard work, but we must never lose sight of the wonderful privilege we have as praise and worship leaders to influence the move of the Holy Spirit in the lives of others”. However, this article is speaking to what each Christian does outside the confines of the church, what we do Monday to Saturday. Looking at what goes on around me and around the world; it concerns me that sincerity is lacking in our worship even when we are in church. People just seem to go through with it as quickly as they can.

There is nothing that upsets me more than ‘senseless worship’. This is the kind of worship whereby everyone can feel that there is a thick wall between God and His people and the praise and worship team just continues as if it’s business as usual. NO, it cannot and will never be business as usual; you need to get into that intimate place of worship where your heart taps into that of God. Isn’t that why we even come to church in the first place? REFUSE TO BE BOXED BY PEOPLE WHO ENJOY SENSELESS WORSHIP. These are the people that have no clue of the most basic reason of why God created mankind in the very first place. The praise Team in our church is all so familiar about my stance on senseless worship. I refuse to go to church routinely, if I can’t reach my Father and He reach me, I may as well stay at home. I’m an enemy of religion, we really don’t like each other very much and that all stems from the fact that I had too much of it in my life and thank God I realized how much it robbed me of a fulfilling relationship with my father. This is a subject for another day and let me get back to the focus of this article.

Hear me very well, we worship God because He is worthy of our worship not for what He can give and do in the kingdom of darkness. For many years even before our daughter was conceived, my husband and I have been praying for our children and one of the things we have prayed for is that they should love The Holy Spirit and have a desire to know Him more and why He is there for us. It was a very happy and joyful moment for us as parents three weeks ago when our daughter, now 7 years old just asked out of the blue who the Holy Spirit was, what was speaking in tongues and the fact that she too wants to speak in tongues. As we prayed with her after I explained everything to her in the simplest terms I could think of, as a parent my heart was filled with joy and pride and at that very moment nothing mattered more than that His presence consume that little child. I wanted so much of God in her life that she would never want to leave His presence.

Worship is a deliberate act and state of the heart. It takes courage and determination to say that you will not leave His presence until you have touched his heart. Sadly many Christians don’t even know what I’m talking about because they have never experienced this and some don’t even have the desire. Your worship will set an ambush in the enemy’s camp. It upsets me so much to see people grumpy and fighting to stand at the pulpit and have “their day” or “spotlight” as they say yet when it’s time for prayer and worship they are so bored and don’t even partake in what’s happening. When the word is taught, they are either still bored or walking up and down distracting people that are attentively listening to the word of God. Better still they would rather be outside than to sit under the ministry of the man of God and recharge their spirits. You can’t have a meaningful relationship with God without the help of the Holy Spirit. Every believer ought to love the Holy Spirit because it is the Holy Spirit who knows what’s in the heart of God and brings it to us. These people are so bored and find other things to be busy with because they don’t have a relationship with the Father. If you have relationship with the Father, you will absolutely live and walk with His Spirit. How can you dislike the Holy Spirit who ushers you into the presence of the very Father you claim to love? That beats me.

One of the weapons that I have seen the devil use time and time again especially in corporate church, Is to give people the perception that worship, prayer and reading or even listening to the word of God is such a burden. I once invited a young lady to church and she said to me, I don’t mind coming church as long as you don’t do the worship, prayer and preaching thing, that’s just too heavy for me. Yes that’s what she said and sadly many Christians in the church have the same attitude and it makes me wonder if any of them have even remotely stumbled upon Mathew 11:30’ “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”. That for me is the devil at his best; his plan is to completely wear us out (as one preacher once put it) so that we have a bad attitude towards worship. We find ourselves literally striving in our worship and prayer, it’s so much work for us and even the thought of it seems like such a heavy weight. Christians burn out from all this striving and they get to a point where they just can’t go on.  Hey the devil has you in a trap; there is a place of refreshing in worship, in prayer and in reading the word of God. The devil knows that once you tap into that place you may not want to ever look back. That place of continual refreshing is where we ought to live every day of our lives.

Till next time, remember that WORSHIP IS A WAY OF LIFE.